


The Continental

by WetSammyWinchester



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - John Wick (Movies) Setting, Assassins & Hitmen, Barebacking, M/M, Porn With Plot, Rough Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-30 23:22:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21436375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WetSammyWinchester/pseuds/WetSammyWinchester
Summary: Being a hitman is a lonely life. In between jobs, Jensen hooks up with fellow hitman Jared for a night or two at The Continental—a safe and discreet place for men in their line of work.Or at least, it used to be.
Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Comments: 48
Kudos: 197
Collections: SPN Cinema





	The Continental

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SPN Cinema Round 10 for the movie prompt, John Wick. This takes place in the John Wick-iverse alongside some of the events in the first movie. It's a fun world to play in if only for a short time.
> 
> Thanks to monicawoe and zmediaoutlet for their thoughts on this! (there were some last-minute rewrites so all mistakes are my own.)

It’s raining. It always seems to be raining in New York nowadays, he thinks as the taxi pulls in front of the hotel. He would kill for a few days in the sun without a dead body at his feet.

Under the green awning, the lobby lights gleam warmly through the hotel’s front doors as he steps out of the taxi. Before the raindrops hit his suit, one of the doormen covers his head with a large umbrella, following him across the sidewalk and then soundlessly stepping back into place as Jensen heads up the steps. Another identically-dressed doorman holds the door for him. 

“Welcome back to The Continental, Mr. Ackles.”

The light from the glass chandeliers is diffused through brass dividers that line the lobby and it makes a quatrefoil pattern of light and dark on the marble floor as he walks towards the concierge. Jensen owns a townhouse on the other side of town, but he likes to stay at the hotel after a job, especially one that didn’t go well. The Continental’s not home but he belongs here.

“Glad to have you back, Mr. Ackles.” Charon glances up from his desk and smiles. His eyes travel down to the bloody scratch across Jensen’s cheekbone. “Will you be joining us for a few days?”

“Just one night.” The exchange is brief and Charon slides the key card across the desk to him but when Jensen reaches for it, he doesn’t release it.

“The manager is in his lounge right now. He asked that you stop by after you check-in.”

Jensen sighs. It’s been a long day and the target gave him more of a fight than usual but if Winston wants to talk, sleep will have to wait. 

The murmur of conversation and soft music filters up from the lobby bar as Jensen climbs the stairs to the open-air lounge. His footsteps are heavier than usual—the last mark got in a few punches before Jensen took him out. He’s getting older and each job seems to take more out of him.

He doesn’t see Winston at first glance and walks over to the balcony, leaning his elbows on the railing to check out the bar below. It’s only half-filled but there are a few familiar faces. Ms. Perkins is in the corner, chatting up another woman, and her brassy laugh floats above the small talk. If Perkins has a tell when she’s booked a big job, it’s that laugh. At the other end of the bar, Padalecki holds court with a few of the B-listers. He stands half a head taller than the others, telling some kind of war story by waving around his giant hands. Padalecki looks over their heads and sees Jensen standing at the balcony. He nods and the corner of his mouth crooks up in a smile but Jensen turns away. Business first. Pleasure after.

Winston enters from his private office and one of the waiters glides in from the staircase to bring him a brandy. He hands Jensen his usual—Pappy’s on the rocks—before slipping out silently.

“Good to see you, my boy,” Winston says, his thick accent both a warm welcome and a distant threat. He waves his ringed finger at Jensen’s cheek. “That wound might need stitches. Should I send the doctor to your room?”

“No, I’m fine.” Jensen places his hands on the railing and nods at the crowd below. “Busy night for you.”

“No more than usual. Always a steady flow of business.” Winston takes a sip of his drink and then looks Jensen up and down. “But enough with the small talk. Rumor has it that you’re looking at getting out. Thinking of retiring.”

Winston draws out the last word as if it’s a foreign language he’s still learning and Jensen hesitates before responding. The High Table frowns on employees taking leave before they’re ready to let them go—it’s only happened once since Jensen joined. 

“A wise man always thinks about the future.”

“That’s true, my boy,” Winston says, “The problem is that the best-laid plans for retirement can go awry. Look at Mr. Wick. He’s back with us. Even staying here tonight.”

Jensen tries to hide his surprise but Winston’s smug smile says he’s not successful. John Wick dropped out of the life after one last job. An impossible job, according to the others, and one that was big news back in the day. At quiet moments between his own gigs, Jensen thinks of what it must be like. A quiet place to live, someone to go home to at night, something to look forward to beyond another payday—those thoughts sit on the horizon, hazy and unformed but they cause a longing that Jensen can’t let go of. He wonders what could have brought John Wick back when he had all that in his hands.

“John always was the best of us,” Jensen says. “You must be happy to have him back.”

“Yes, well, it’s a tough pond to leave for any fish,” Winston says. “Another job has come up and I want to discuss it with you. A private affair for one of the families. They don’t want the contract put out for general bid but there’s a high payoff. It requires a delicate touch and I thought of you.”

“Oh, yeah? Looking at the crowd here tonight, subtlety is not their strong suit.”

Down below, Padalecki catches his eye again when he hears Winston laugh at Jensen and something behind that look gives Jensen pause. “Perhaps we can talk more about this tomorrow? It’s been a long night.”

“Of course,” Winston says. “Tomorrow then. Breakfast on the roof?”

They both nod and Jensen makes his way down to the lobby bar. The crowd around Padalecki thins as Jensen steps up and he considers his options from the gleaming shelves of liquor bottles behind it. Around him, many of the others are walking out and he glances up at the balcony to see that Winston has left. He smiles at the show of it all. Social bonds between assassins only go so far, especially now that the manager isn’t around to see. Behind the bar, the bartender serves up Jensen’s next bourbon. 

“Jensen Ackles, well, goddamn,” Padalecki drawls, leaning on his elbow as Jensen slides onto a bar stool. Jensen side-eyes how Padalecki’s bicep bulges under the expensive dress shirt as he lifts his drink and the long line of his throat as he swallows.

“You drinking a gin fizz there, Padalecki?” Jensen says, arching an eyebrow, and the other man’s ever-present smile widens into deep dimples.

“It’s an Italian mojito. You should try it.” He moves over to the barstool next to Jensen and bumps his knee against Jensen’s leg and his voice lowers to a smooth purr. “And it’s Jared. You know that.”

Jensen glances around the room once more. It’s empty now except for the bartender who is making himself busy polishing glasses.

“Plenty of seats here, Jared.” He’s close enough that Jensen can smell the basil in his drink and the Dior cologne he wears. 

“But I’ve been waiting all night to sit next to you,” Jared says and then leans in close to Jensen’s ear and whispers. “We should get out of here.”

Jensen turns quickly and the stubble of Jared’s cheek brushes against his. “You sure are eager tonight.”

Jared leans back and there’s a tense set to his eyes even as he gives another easy smile. “Yeah, well, you know me.” He drains the rest of his cocktail and slides a gold coin across to the bartender. 

Jensen is happy to watch as Jared pushes away from the bar and heads off to the elevator. The deliberate sway of his hips in those tailored dress pants keeps Jensen’s attention longer than it should. He turns back to his drink and waits for a minute to savor the whiskey on his tongue. 

This thing between the two of them only exists here inside the hotel. A night spent together between jobs here and there. Outside the walls of the Continential, they might walk by each other on the street without a word or more likely they’d be on opposite sides of a hit. Jensen wonders how that would go, to face Jared as a competitor. He’s quick and good with knives based on the stories Jensen’s heard but he’s also cocky and emotional. It gets the better of him, like the Vignetti thing last week. It was a simple job. Jared found the target at his vacation cabin and had the guy in his sights but then his four-year-old daughter walked in the room. Rather than pull the trigger, Jared walked away.

That kind of softness gets an assassin killed. 

Jensen slides his own gold coin across the bar and then slips out to follow. 

Jared is up ahead, his white dress shirt gleaming in the dim lights of the hotel, and Jensen watches as he makes a right turn into the elevator bank. By the time Jensen reaches the corner, Jared’s gone. 

He steps into one of the empty elevators, pulling the antique metal gate shut before he pushes the button for his floor. As the elevator goes up, the brass dial ticks off the floors. Jensen smiles as he thinks about the night ahead. When the elevator doors open on his floor, he waits inside by instinct, holding his breath to listen before stepping into the hall. 

Apparently, his instincts are for shit as he’s yanked by his suit coat and thrown into the wall. His body is pressed flat and he can’t reach his gun which is a good thing as Jared laughs and then kisses him hard, an assault of lips and teeth and tongue.

“Got ya, old man,” he says. Jensen shoves him hard enough in the chest that Jared stumbles back.

“My room. Now,” Jensen says and yanks Jared along by the elbow, but Jared digs his heels in and yanks him back hard. When their bodies collide, Jared grabs onto Jensen’s ass with both hands and crowds him against the wall. Jared’s breath changes with the sparring, rapid and shallow, and Jensen thinks about twisting Jared’s arm behind his back just to hear more of those noises. 

Instead, he goes for soft and pulls Jared close enough to smell the sweat under the citrus of his cologne. There’s a pause in all this push-and-pull and Jensen expects another kiss from Jared. Instead, he brings his hand up and runs a finger tenderly along the cut on Jensen’s cheek.

“The Roberts hit?” he asks.

“No, your mother,” Jensen replies with a smirk as he whips them around once more, slamming Jared’s back against the wall. He pins him down with a forearm across the throat, jamming his knee between Jared’s thighs which forces another one of these gasps from Jared. Jensen goes rock hard at the sound. Pushing in, he tilts Jared’s chin up to expose the pale column of his long throat and noses along the smooth skin. He presses his lips against Jared’s carotid where the blood is pumping underneath his skin; he starts to kiss but gives a lick and some teeth, satisfied to hear Jared grunt in response.

This is the way it always is between them—Jared is a slut for pain and pressure, and Jensen loses himself with someone who can take anything he gives out. 

Normally he doesn’t care about fucking where people can see them, but right now Jensen doesn’t want to share this with hotel staff and hidden cameras. He wants to take his time. When he releases his grip, Jared slides down from the wall and his eyes shift over Jensen’s shoulder to the far end of the hallway.

“No, my room. East end is safer.” 

“Safer?” Jensen’s eyebrows go up and Jared can’t meet his eyes.

“I can’t tell you. Not here.” They make a right turn at the end of the long hallway and head to a corner room, where Jared slides his key card into the lock and they slip into darkness.

As soon as they’re in the door, Jared slips his hand under Jensen’s jacket, huge and warm pressed up against his shirt. Jensen wants to lean into it but pulls away, teasing out the moment by walking further into the suite. He moves to the Art Deco bar and pours them whiskey straight up.

“Nice room,” he says. “Who’d you have to kill to get it?”

“They’re all the same, Jensen.”

Jared’s flat reaction to the joke makes Jensen pause as he picks up the drink. Their lives are made up of secrets and violence but this—this thing between them, whatever it is—has always been a night away from that. They joke. They fuck. It’s a distraction. 

“Tell me what the hell is going on, Jared, or I walk out that door,” he says. He sips the bourbon and leans back against the bar with practiced calm.

Jared sighs and grabs the other highball glass from the bar, draining it in one swallow. “I overheard that something’s going down tonight.”

“A hit? In the hotel?” Jensen shakes his head. “No way.”

“How about I fix us another drink?” Jared plunks ice and another healthy slug of whiskey in his glass.

“You gonna tell me?”

“No.” Jared drinks the second bourbon slow and stubborn while Jensen sets his, unfinished, on a table and waits for more. Jared isn’t in a giving mood. “I told you enough. Just trust me.”

“Trust you? Ha. I should leave.” He starts to walk out but distant shots echo outside the room. Jensen reaches for the gun in his shoulder holster but Jared lays a hand on top of it. 

“Whatever is happening out there, we’re not part of it.”

The one constant in Jensen’s life is The Continental. Every job is a challenge, every client a frustration. Outside these walls, he has to watch his back but here at the hotel, it’s a safe zone. The gunfire outside this room tilts his world on its axis. He stands tense, unsure, and waits for the next shot. Echoes of shouts follow the volley of gunfire but they aren’t loud enough to be heard clearly through the door. Jared leans in, his hand still on Jensen’s gun until their lips are inches away. 

“Nothing we can do about it. You’re stuck here with me,” he whispers against the corner of Jensen’s lips and then kisses the spot where his jaw muscle ticks. Jared slides down Jensen’s chest and drops to his knees on the carpet and starts to unbuckle Jensen’s suit pants. Whether it’s a distraction or just Jared’s hard-on for violence doesn’t matter in the end.

“Jared,” Jensen says, ready to push him away but then Jared yanks open the front of his pants and he buries his fingers in Jared’s long hair as he nuzzles in. “This is not the time—”

There’s another burst of muffled gunfire and Jensen grips Jared in response, pulling his head in which draws a low moan from Jared. That sound and the vibration from Jared’s lips pressed right up against the thin material covering his cock short-circuits all of Jensen’s common sense. Blood and adrenalin course through Jensen’s brain and spine. He’s itching to pull his gun out but he’s rooted to the spot where Jared’s on his knees. Jensen pulls Jared’s hair so that he looks up at him with those dark irises and open pink lips. 

“Tell me,” he says. “Tell me who they’re after.”

“Wick,” Jared says and licks his lips. “I heard Perkins and her contact earlier.”

“Neither of us?” Jensen asks and Jared shakes his head. “Okay then.”

He pushes Jared’s head back into place, and Jared goes easily. Cool air hits his cock for a moment before it’s enveloped in Jared’s warm lips, and Jensen groans and sways in place as Jared’s hands find their way up the back of his thighs to grip and massage his ass roughly. Another series of gunshots echo down the hall and Jensen rests one hand on Jared’s head and the other eases the gun from his holster, watching the door. 

He widens his stance as Jared runs his tongue up the ridge that runs from the base to the tip of his cock, and shudders at the pressure as Jared rolls and tugs Jensen’s sac with those big fingers. His skin feels like a thousand needles as he watches the doorknob for any movement, hyper-alert and ready for a firefight that might burst into this room. Jared continues to make noise and Jensen pulls his eyes away from the door to look down again. A tear squeezes out the corner of Jared’s eye as he chokes on Jensen’s cock. That sight makes Jensen want to say something stupid. Something about taking risks, about protecting yourself, about not being an idiot, but he doesn’t. 

John Wick may be fighting for his life down the hall but Jensen can’t find it in himself to care about anything outside of this room and that face.

Jared pulls off and wraps his big hand around Jensen’s cock and picks up the pace. “Show me,” he says in a wrecked voice.

A few more shots sound closer. “Not out here.”

As Jared stands, Jensen is stripping off his shoulder holster and clothes while Jared pulls his shirt over his head, leaving a puddle of fine wool and cotton on the living room carpet. Jensen picks up the gun, the metal pressed coldly into his palm, with one final glance at the door before they move things into the bedroom.

Jensen’s had sex in a lot of awkward spots before. Being a hitman, sex and violence go hand in hand. There was the bathhouse in Budapest two years ago where he fucked some nameless attendant behind a pillar, coming only a few minutes before his target walked in the door. Or San Francisco when things got out of hand. He was caught sneaking into a target’s bedroom during a party and only saved his cover by convincing the guy that he was drunk and just wanted sex. One thing led to another and Jensen had to break the guy’s neck while his cock was still inside.

These aren’t moments that Jensen is proud of. They were sloppy, and Jensen doesn’t like sloppy. And this moment right here? It was sloppy.

Jared crawls across the mattress and sprawls naked. Behind him, a knife is half-hidden under the pillow and within easy grasp. The weapon doesn’t hold as much interest for Jensen as the image of Jared spread across the bed. 

“Where were we?” Jensen asks. He sets the gun on the nightstand and takes his own cock in hand.

“You were gonna show me,” Jared says. “But I think it’s my turn.”

Jensen hums in approval as Jared strokes himself slowly before dropping his long fingers at the base of his dick to roll his balls between them. As Jensen watches, Jared watches back with dark eyes that glitter in the lamplight.

“Oh yeah,” Jared drawls as he makes a display of squeezing his balls. Jensen appreciates the view—Jared keeps himself waxed and smooth like a swimmer—and he never gets tired of the way Jared loves to touch himself. The muscles in his thighs and stomach tightening as he focuses inward and continues to fondle himself. Jared’s breath catches and becomes a low moan as he grips the back of one of his thighs and holds it up close to his chest—a clear invitation.

Much as Jensen loves to watch, his dick doesn’t want to wait. 

Jared makes an obscene noise as he sucks a finger into his mouth, getting it dripping wet. He hikes both legs up effortlessly, the muscles in his abs contracting as he holds the position. Reaching down, he pulls at his hole—his eyes never leaving Jensen’s face. Jared snakes the tip of his finger in and out. The skin around his hole is puffy and slick and Jensen lets out a low “fuck” as he realizes that Jared was waiting and ready for him in the bar downstairs when he first walked in.

Jared laughs when he sees the realization on Jensen’s face. “What? Was hoping at the elevator but you were too slow—” The rest of his words are pushed out as Jensen puts his weight on Jared’s legs folding him practically in half. Jensen holds his cock so that the tip rubs right at Jared’s entrance.

“Fuck yeah, don’t be a tease. Show me,” Jared says. Despite the lube, it’s slow going and Jensen breathes deeply as he pushes inside. Jared whines and digs his nails into the meat of Jensen’s shoulders. “What are you waiting for? Fuck me.”

Jensen pulls out and slams back in, again and again. The angle is perfect, the tight heat around his cock is perfect and he doesn’t last long before he comes inside Jared with a grunt.

~~~

“It’s raining still,” Jensen says. The rain hits the window above the bed in soft sheets as the wind gusts. He feels boneless and content after a shower and the gunfire from earlier seems far away as he lies in bed next to Jared.

“Is it?” Jared looks up at the window and smiles as another gust shakes the glass. “I like it.”

“I’d rather be somewhere with sun and beach right now, working on my tan. Wouldn’t you?” 

“What an old man. Besides you’re too pale to live someplace tropical. You’d burn.” Jared crinkles his nose up. “Why would you want to retire? This life is amazing. We travel all over the world and get to do something that we’re really good at. Oh, and they pay us a shit-on of money. A lot. Maybe you can walk away from that but I can’t.”

Jensen isn’t sure if it’s the difference in their ages or Jensen’s upbringing with the Ruska Roma but he’s tired of the life. It’s an exhaustion that lives deep in his bones and no amount of money can change that.

“Wonder if it’s safe to leave yet?” Jensen says but he makes no move from where he lies in a tangle of sheets. There’s chaos waiting outside their door and someone they know may be dead.

Jared rolls up on his side, propping his head on his hand to study Jensen’s face. “Probably. But there’s no reason to go. You could stay here tonight.” His voice goes up on the last word and Jensen isn’t sure if it’s a question or a request. Jared pulls the knife out from under the pillow and sets it on the nightstand, and Jensen feels a few bricks crumble down from the wall around his heart.

“Not gonna kill me in my sleep, huh?” Jensen asks as Jared flops on his stomach and bunches the pillows under his head.

“Not unless you snore.”

~~~

Jensen sleeps lightly. When he wakes, the morning light is streaming through the blinds. He studies Jared, still face-down in the pillows, and brushes a stray lock of hair that hangs over his face. He looks young, no trace of cockiness as he sleeps. 

Jensen’s never stayed the night before with anyone. It leads to complications, expectations. Now, as he looks at Jared next to him, there are words he’d like to say. Or better yet, no words at all—just the two of them reading the paper and eating waffles together. 

There’s a buzzing sound coming from the suite’s living room and he eases out from under the sheets. The noise keeps on, coming from their pile of clothes from last night and he finds his cell phone vibrating in his pant pocket. There’s no name listed but he doesn’t need it. He knows this phone number by heart.

“Winston. How can I help you?” 

“Mr. Ackles, how are you this morning?” He can’t read anything in the cheerful lilt of the manager’s voice. “Wondering if you could meet me for breakfast.”

“Of course. I’ll be up in thirty minutes.”

He dresses quietly and has one hand on the doorknob when Jared walks out of the bedroom wrapped in the top sheet from the bed. His hair is messy but his eyes are sharp. 

“Another job?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Jensen replies. The sheet that Jared holds slips down low on his hips and the morning light casts a glow, highlighting red and gold strands in Jared’s brown hair that Jensen’s never seen before. He waits, not sure of what to say.

“Be careful out there,” Jared says. He turns his back on Jensen and saunters into the bathroom. Jensen hears the shower turn on and he slips out the door.

~~~

The poached eggs are perfectly done, the bacon is crisp, and the view from the roof of the city below is incomparable, but it’s the coffee that Jensen savors first.

“I must apologize for the incident last night near your room,” Winston starts, his face pulled down in distaste as he shakes out his napkin. “An egregious abuse of hotel rules. It won’t happen again, not while I'm here.”

Jensen waits. He got a glimpse of Wick’s hotel room when he walked back to his own. The suite was wrecked—broken lamps, divots in the wallpaper from gunfire, expensive ceramic art smashed all over the floor. An attempted hit on one of their own inside the Continental—no wonder Winston looks shaken.

“You must be curious about the job I mentioned. After last night, I was wondering whether I should give this to someone else, but you were requested specifically,” Winston says and adjusts his reading glasses before sliding an envelope across the table. “One of the Elders is unhappy and wants this personal matter taken care of by someone we can trust. I want it taken care of far away from my hotel.”

Jensen opens it and pulls out the vellum card with a name typed on it. He thinks he hides his shock well this time. “Can I say no?” he asks. 

“I don’t know all the reasons you were requested,” Winston says. “But if you’re looking to retire, it could be negotiated. Pending successful completion of this job, of course.”

“Of course,” Jensen replies with a tight smile. He slides the card back inside and pushes it back to the middle of the table. “Consider it done.” 

~~~

He watches the apartment from across the street. It’s a typical building in the Meatpacking District, old brick with converted lofts above and boutique shops below. The streetside cafe that Jensen sits at gives him a perfect view as he sips cappuccino and types on his laptop like the other people at the surrounding tables. 

A black car pulls up out front and his target walks out of the building and climbs inside. Jensen ducks his head, pulling the baseball cap low as it drives off.

He pays his bill in cash and jogs across the street, circling around to the back alley. He slips in through the back delivery door where he had taped the lock earlier that morning. The old stairwell makes noise as he climbs, but his surveillance over the previous week showed that most of the tenants would be gone this time of day. The locks on the large metal sliding door, a remnant of its previous life, take a few minutes to pick and after he enters, he locks them all again from inside. A motion-sensing security camera in the corner of the loft tracks his movements across the hardwood floor. He pauses in front of a bookcase and picks up a framed photo. It shows three dark-haired kids, two brothers and a sister Jensen would guess, their arms thrown over each other’s shoulders with the awkward smiles of youth. He sets it down where he found it and makes his way to the hidden security closet. It was custom built by an architect for this client and contains video surveillance equipment along with a weapons vault. Jensen ignores the vault—he’s not a safecracker after all—and easily wipes the security recordings for the past week. He shuts the closet, carefully clicking the door back in place.

“You did your homework. Impressive.”

When he hears that drawl behind him, Jensen reaches for the gun in his holster. “You have no idea.”

“Don’t even try it.”

He turns around and faces Jared and the barrel of his Heckler & Koch P30L. The gun doesn’t waver but Jared’s face flickers between hurt and deadly anger.

“Never thought I’d be the job,” he says. 

“Guess you shouldn’t have pissed off Vignetti on that last job.”

“Guess not.” Jared doesn’t shoot him. Instead, he circles around Jensen and waves him out into the room. “So how was this going to go? Make it look like a break-in?”

“Something like that.”

Jared nods. “I would have done the same thing.”

“Jared, listen—” A shot hits Jensen’s shoulder and spins him to the ground but the fall to the floor gives him the opportunity to pull out his own gun. From his awkward angle looking up, he takes a shot at Jared but the bullet goes wide, ricocheting off the door frame and Jared dodges into the kitchen. “If it wasn’t me, Jared, someone else would have come for you.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” Jared says.

Jensen’s shoulder hurts but it was a clean through-and-through. He combat-crawls behind the sofa. When he sticks his head around it to look in the kitchen, a shot rips through the corner of the couch, ripping through the upholstery, and he pulls back.

“Jared, I don’t want to—-”

“Just shut up.” 

Jared is trapped where he is - the kitchen only has the one entrance; Jensen just needs to be patient. He waits while he bleeds into the rug.

“Of all the people they could have sent—” Jared laughs.

“They knew,” Jensen says. “They knew about us.”

Jared goes silent and then laughs harder and it’s edged with bitterness. “Of course, they did. We weren’t exactly subtle.” 

Jensen isn’t expecting Jared to rush out of the kitchen. When he sees the flash of movement, he takes another shot but Jared is quick, vaulting over a chair and rolling behind the bookcases in the middle of the room to disappear from sight.

“Jared, just let me explain.” Jensen stands up and silently moves to one end of the bookcases. They’re on gliders, acting as movable room dividers in the big, open loft, so Jensen is careful not to touch them and give away his position. As he tries to peer around the corner and spot Jared, the big wooden case slams into his back knocking him to the floor while Jared makes a run for the front door. Jensen tackles him from behind and they crash into a table, splintering glass and wood. Jared’s gun goes flying, landing just out of his reach, and they grapple on the floor over Jensen’s weapon, flipping over several times. A sharp kick to Jensen’s nuts and he drops his gun. Jared is able to get his feet under him, dragging Jensen up by the front of his coat.

Jared may have the advantage of height but up close in a fist fight, Jensen is the stronger of the two. Even with a gunshot wound, Jensen throws a barrage of punches. Jared grunts. When Jared tries to step back away, Jensen lands a punch to the jaw. The way Jared drops to the ground and doesn’t move means he hit the mark—a total knockout. Jared lies still and Jensen nudges him in the side with his toe and when he doesn’t get a response, he walks over to pick up his gun.

Jared still hasn't moved when he gets back and Jensen aims carefully. The shot is loud in the open loft. Blood begins to pool on the hardwood underneath Jared, and Jensen closes his eyes as he takes his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Send the cleaner.”

~~~

The sun is out and the sand feels good on his bare feet. The blue water in front of him stretches out until it meets the blue of the sky. His shoulder still aches from the last gunshot and he rubs it as he settles further back into the folding beach chair. The paperback on his lap slides off to the side and lands on the sand.

After all that time he spent brushing elbows with dangerous people and blending into places like The Continental, he thought he’d miss the city and its energy. He doesn’t. The private island, bought with all cash through layers of shell companies and brokers, is small. He fishes and suns and walks the shoreline, never wondering what name will appear in his next vellum envelope slid across the table. His only contact is with a guy who drops off supplies and new books once a week by boat. 

Some people might think of the isolation as a posh prison or a penance for the things he’s done, that he’s locked himself away. They’d be wrong. Jensen thinks of it as peace. A well-earned peace. Maybe someday he’ll get tired of the quiet but not today.

The sound of a small motor in the distance signals that the supply boat is about twenty minutes out. He gathers up his stuff and starts the walk back to the house.

~~~

The supplies are stacked on the porch as usual, but the front door is opened a crack, He pulls a gun from a hidden spot by the steps. Old instincts die hard and he holds it steadily in front of him as he kicks off his shoes to walk silently across the wooden porch.

Nothing looks off inside until he spots the man sprawled on his couch. Jared is tan, his skin glistening from the humidity, and his hair grown out long over his ears. He is thinner than before, lost the muscle and gained more of a runner’s build from what Jensen can see.

“You did your homework,” Jensen says, lowering the weapon. “Impressive.”

“I’m good at listening,” Jared says.

“Took you six months.”

“I had things to take care of.”

“I bet.”

Jared eyes Jensen’s gun still leveled at his chest but doesn’t pull one of his own. “You saved my life once and now you’re going to shoot me?”

Jensen shrugs and lowers the gun. “Thought you might carry a grudge.”

“Oh, I do,” Jared’s smile gets an edge. “But it’s not with you.”

Jensen sets the gun down on a side table. He glances at where the edge of a scar shows under Jared’s shirt. His gunshot wound was enough to leave blood behind, a lot of blood, but not enough to kill.

“I was a little confused when I woke up in that safe house. Alive.”

Jensen shrugs. “The cleaner owed me a marker.”

Jared nods and shifts his gaze out the front windows at the green palms and the blue water. “Seems I owe you a marker now.”

When Jared meets his eyes again, Jensen’s stomach clenches and unclenches. The High Table was satisfied with the job and allowed him to leave. Jared is out of a job, left with nothing, but he’s alive. Jensen couldn’t have asked for the whole thing to go better. They could walk away from each other, go to opposite ends of the world and live their lives. Except for the way he feels when Jared looks at him. Having someone who knows him, who sees him for what he is, and doesn’t judge him. There’s only one way for this to be better.

“Got a guest room in this beach shack?” Jared says, sprawling out on the couch.

“Nope. Just the one bedroom.” 

“Well,” Jared drawls. “We can make that work.”


End file.
